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Transcript

Eating While Broke: VAN LATHAN - Angola State Grilled Cheese Part 1 · Eating While Broke

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: We are not in La today. We are over here
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: at eighty five South Studios with the special guests of
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the day. Van Lengthen is in the building. You guys
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: may know him as podcaster, Academy Award winning executive producer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: You know, but I like to acknowledge you as the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: man that stood up to Kanye West in the TMZ
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: office commissioner of the Commissioner. And we're gonna leave the
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Commissioner of the BBI off. But Van, before we get
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: into where you're at today, I want you to take
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: me back to where you were when you were broke.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: What dish you're gonna have cook for us to eat today?
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: So you can start with that, eat my throat.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: So I get out of college around I would say
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: two thousand and three, two thousand and three, I get
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: out of college, and there's this like transitional period in
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: my life because I was always interested in people's stories,
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: and everybody's story seems so linear. Every story seems linear
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: when you're at the end of it. Everybody has a
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: moment that something happened for them. Everybody has a moment
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: that they realize something, But when you're in the middle
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: of it, you don't know. You'll know when it's going
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: to happen for you, you'll know how it's going to
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: happen for you. Certain people have more certainty than other
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: people do. But all you can do is work and try.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: And I get to this point, and it's this weird,
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: odd point to where I'm like, nothing that I thought
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: was going to happen and or no way that I
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: wanted to go is the way that I wanted to go.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So you're graduated, we're taking back to when you graduated.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Right, And so I'm working at best Buy And this
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: is the same time that The College Dropout has come
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: out around that same time Conye's first album, and he's
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: talking about great album. He's talking about disillusioned high school
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: graduates who now have to realize that they're not going
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: to conquer the world, that what they're going to do
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: is enter into the American workforce and they're going to
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: be a part of something, and everything that they did
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: it's not just not as meaningful as they thought it
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: was going to be. In a way, it's spiritually debilitating.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: And the song is the whole album is about breaking
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: free of that. Really it's about saying, hey, like I
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: dropped out, but I dropped out. I took a path
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: that is, let's admire, but in a way drowned upon
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: in order to be more alive, Like I'm not killing myself,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: and so I'm to the point to where I'm like
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: having an existential crisis. I'm like, yo, I'm killing myself.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: It's not it's not working. And so many things happen
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: within this two year period. My parents divorced. My mom
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: leaves the house, and that was very transformative for me, because,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: like when a woman leaves a home right away, everything
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: gets less.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: What you were you were talking about after college though?
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Were you living at home with your parents?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Sure?
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Oh you were. During college.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I went to Southern University and Van Ruge had gone
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: away to school, and then I came back and I
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: went to Southern University because I wanted to be around
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: all of my friends. So I was still living at home.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: The school was about ten minutes away from where we lived.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, So how old were you when your parents.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Were like twenty two or twenty three.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And so you actually got to see it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: I got to see it, right, I got to see
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: it there's two people divorcing and not mommy and daddy divorcing.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: And I also got to see, just.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: What do you mean they're not mommy and daddy divorcing.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: It wasn't mommy and daddy divorcing when you're ten and
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: your parents break up, you're thirteen, fourteen, Mommy and daddy
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: are divorcing. In my life, Crystal and Terry got a
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: divorce because I had enough of a frame of mind,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: or a frame of reference, should I say, for these
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: people to know who they kind of really were at
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: that point. So I knew the anger that my father had,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: I knew the paranoia that my mother had. I knew
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: that these were two people that were on diverging spiritual
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: growth the journey, should I say, and that they were
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: no longer compatible, and like what that means, Like when
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: you're a kid, it's like, oh, you guys gonna get
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: split up? Okay, who am I going to live with?
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: It's not the concern for me. The concern for me
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: is do these people still get to live the version
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: of their life that they want to live now that
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: they're no longer together? And so when I saw that,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: you know, my mom, I was actually happy for them
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: that they had made the decision. I was happy for
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: them that my mother I thought, Okay, this is a
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: new life for her. She had felt beaten down by
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: a lot of things emotionally, she had felt unsupported by
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of things emotionally, and obviously, with my father
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: doing some of the things that he was doing, he
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: must have been unhappy too. So maybe this is a
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: new life for them. I'm young enough to think at
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: that point that severing that type of relationship in some
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: way could be a positive for those two people as
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: much as they loved each other, and loved each other
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: until my father passed away. But immediately she left the
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: house and it was two niggas living in the house
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: that didn't know how to do shit, Like the house
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: just became It's like, it's just like, I remember.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Were you young, the youngest to or something? Who are
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: you the youngest in your family? Because you said it
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: was just the.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Two, Yeah I was. I was the youngest in the family.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: I was the only one still around. My sister had gone.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: You know, my dad had other kids, but they were gone.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: But like, so it's just me and him living.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Your dad had other kids, Yeah, what do.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: You mean he had other kids, nigga, you know what
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I mean A lot. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: So so it was, it was that's another reason why
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: you're happy for her to go and have a chance
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: at a life that is for her. Yeah right, And
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: so you know, me and him are there and it's
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: like she she's your mom, but she's also like a
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: genius in creating. She's a genius in keeping things running.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: She you get taught this lesson of misogyny, and the
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: lesson is that somebody leaves the house and they gonna
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: make a whole bunch of money. And my mother worked
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: too and made a lot of money. But somebody leaves
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: the house and gonna makes a lot of money, and
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: then they come back into a castle and everything that
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: they touch inside the house turns to go. But you
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: don't realize that there's somebody who's keeping your life beautiful.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: There's someone who's who's attention to detail, somebody whose ability
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: to multitask, somebody who who looks out for things. Somebody
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: who when something's broke, they go, Okay, you gotta fix that.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Somebody who when something doesn't work, they okay, we gotta
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: get it. Working, and the moment that she left, it
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: was the house crumbled. It fell apart, like the turn
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: on the stove. Pop pop, then let's just pop. And
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: I look at him and he looks at me, and
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: I'm like, right, she gets that fixed. That motherfucker popped
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: till we got out of the house with him. Never
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: fixed it, right, The washing machine broke, never got fixed,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. It's just just like little
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: stuff like that. Like my mother used to come out.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: This was a big, beautiful home on about sixty acres
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: that we had had. She would come out and she
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: would spray paint, like like power washed the outside of
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: the house to where everything, like just me and him
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: were just too focused on the individual things that we
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: were doing to care about all of that. The place
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: was just less beautiful because the woman of the house
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: had gone wow. And so during that whole time, I'm
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: also broke. I'm also broke. I'm I'm I'm working at
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: best Buy. I'm like I'm treading water. I don't know
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: what I want to do. And then Hurricane Katrina comes.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: And so when Hurricane Katrina comes, this is like a
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: weird two year period of my life, like everything changes
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: like society crumbles. Everybody's strapped for cash because you've taken
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: on so much more. You got relatives living with you
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: that come down from down in the city. Everything's different,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: and now everyone's trying to stretch that dollar. You're eating different,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: you're feeling different, and it just doesn't feel like there's
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: any abundance. It didn't feel like that in my life.
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: And so that's when that was the most. That was
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: the point, honestly, from two thousand and three to two
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: thousand and five, that was the point where I figured
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: out myself. I moved to LA in two thousand and six.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: By the time I got to LA, I could fucking
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: handle anything. I could handle anything. I had buried homeboys,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I had put relation in the ground. There was nothing
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: the world had showed me like some really ill shit.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: And so when I got out there and was dealing
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: with LA, it was a piece of cake.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: So you also navigated, So what this are you going
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: to have us eat today? Real cheese, grilled cheese. It's
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: at the staple and the most simplastic and delicious meal.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Did you have to add any tomato, soup or anything?
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Or you just didn't? The legendary fuck all that.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: Butter bread cheese. Shout out to my uncle David, resting piece.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Shout out to my uncle Mark, rest in peace. These
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: guys taught me the beauty the grilled cheese. You know
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: where they learned it at? Where? So you think? Nah,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: where you think they learned the grilled cheese at these
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: two uncles? What do you think?
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Someone scream? Somebody say it jail, jail.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I could tell what y'all you've been. I can tell
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: what kind of life you have been living. They they
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: they learned the grilled cheese in jail. They were grilled
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: cheese mechanics.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: They came back in.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Here and they was like, I don't know it was
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: jail because they because because what.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Because yeah, because because we know right there was grilled
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: cheese mechanics.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's see, let's judge your grilled cheese.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: I haven't made it in a long time, because the
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: nigga is not broke no more.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I've been doing this show for. This
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: will be our this is our third season. We're taping
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: right now. And some of the dishes are so good
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: on this show that I go home and I'll make it.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Broken, not Bronna make it.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: They're good.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Butter is a very it's very sensual. Look at butter
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: washes washess washes? Oh daddy, you hear that? Look at
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: the butter go. Oh my god, butter is like delectable.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Right, Oh yeah, I used butter on my cooking.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Really, what's that? What's that? What's blood pressure? Like?
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I'm really healthy. We're really healthy.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Like what you get a church, Well, I don't know if.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: You could do a good grilled cheese. I'm watching the
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: way you're making.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: This, girl, It's not gonna be good.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned. I'm concerned because I feel like you are
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: gonna butcher this grilled cheese.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: It's it's not gonna be good. I can already tell
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: you it's not gonna be good. You know what I'm saying.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, because these jail birds, they definitely jail
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the right way. How much cheese is gonna put on
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: this grilled cheese? This is how you did it, broke? Yeah, man,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: you put three pieces of cheese on your broke grilled cheese.
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you know this, but like I'm
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: a big ass nigga.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah nah, bro you're being judged, and right now this
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: grilled cheese is looking like it's not cool. We're gonna see.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: We'll see well, I mean, we'll see what happens. Cash.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Your question is this show to judge people? Is to
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: get inspired?
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: You know what? The first the first season and a half,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I was very nice with people's feelings, and then I
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: had someone make tuna castro. They motherfucker, it was terrible. Well,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: we tape in LA. Usually like eighty five did this
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: whole thing for us. Shout outs to eighty five. They
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: did the whole cooktop and whole build this whole kitchen.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: I'm in love with it. Now I'm gonna have to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: come to Atlanta more like Atlanta. But yeah, I like it.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: It's cool.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen much out here yet.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: Where do you travel to? Where do you go?
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: What do you mean? Where do I go?
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Where do you be at?
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: I'll be I'll be at LA, New.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: York, La? New York is okay New York, Okay, La
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: New York.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I'm from there. You know. Let's focus on y'all story
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: for sure. Okay, So you graduate, you moved to LA, Yeah,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and you graduate with what degree?
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: I have a political science and English.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Degree, okay. And your goal in life before you left
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: college was to be an attorney okay, and then you
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: got to La.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: To be uh in the movie game?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Okay? What happened in between those times to make you
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: change your career?
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: I spoke to a lot of attorneys.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: You found out they don't like their jobs.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: What I found out. So, my brother Jabriel is one
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: of the most brilliant people I've ever known. Super brilliant,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: like ridiculously smart, right smart in a way that's almost inaccessible.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: And he went to Morehouse here in Atlanta, and then
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: he went to Stanford, one of the greatest law schools
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: in the world. And he didn't have a specific love
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: for the law, if you ask me, but he is
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: just an incredibly successful person. And it didn't seem like
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: to me like that was going to be a fulfilling life.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: What I like to do is commiserate, talk, create. Obviously
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: I like to go back and forth on all of
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: that stuff, But more than anything, I want to create
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: things that made people think and discuss. And I don't
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: think that that was going to be something that was
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: possible as an attorney.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Okay. Now, a little backstory. So did all your siblings
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: graduate college no, okay, or any any of them similar
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to yours, shows similar to your path.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: My sister's a poet, Okay, She's one of the greatest
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: poets in the world, really, I think.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So she made money on it.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: She made no money on it, but she is ridiculously talented.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: And I'm inspired by her every single day because she
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: creates no matter what the circumstance is, Okay, And that,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: to me is more impressive than somebody who gets flown
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: all over the world to create. She creates because she
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: must create, and not because it's incredibly lucrative for her
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: to create. So it's in her.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: It's in her, and that makes.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: Me feel good.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So you get to LA. What's the next step.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I work for a place called Capricorn Programs for a while.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: What do you do there?
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: I produce a show called Cybernet. It's a video game show.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: So when I first get out to LA, I am
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: playing video games for a living and then reporting on
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: those video games on this show Cybernet, and writing for
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: the show, okay, and then then something happens.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: What happens.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: That company goes belly up financial crisis. So when that
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: company goes belly up. Guess what I get to do
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: live on unemployment?
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I love unemployment.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Yep, and I become one of the world's foremost pick
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: up basketball players. Every gym in La you see me,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: twenty four hour fitness, you see me.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Oh you didn't try to hustle on top of the unemployment.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: I definitely did. But the most thing that I did
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: was just play ball and vibe and right. I wrote
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: so much. I wrote so much, so much stuff.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: But how long were you on unemployment? A year?
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Two?
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: You can be on unemployment two years.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: You have to remember that at this time it was
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: the financial crisis, so they were extending benefits to meet
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: people's years.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: It's two eighty and then it's like going into twenty
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: ten basics, and let me tell you what happens.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: This is a true story. So I'm on unemployment, I'm
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: doing my thing. I'm walking into the gym LA Fitness, Hollywood.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Everybody there knows me. Okay, I'm walking into the gym.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: I'm walking into the gym. And as I'm walking into
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: the gym, a lady outside the gym says, hey, you
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: want to take place in the cirt. You want to
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: take part in the survey. Like, yeah, sure, no problem.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: She's like, you take part in the survey, and we
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: like what you say, will give you five hundred dollars.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Oh shit.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: And I was like, hell yeah, okay, So I do
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: the whole thing. I do my whole little stick. I'm
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: on a little small camera that she has, and she goes,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: we like you, we want you to come out to
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: this place, do even more stuff, right and take place
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: in this gigantic, bigger survey. Well, it's not a big deal.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: We're gonna have you try out these products. And when
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: you try these products, we're just gonna ask you what
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: you think about them. I'm like, cool, no problem, all right.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: So I decide to go to this thing. We cheese
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: it up right now.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: It actually looks really good. Impressed.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: And so I go to this thing into Van Eys,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: you know where van So I go in there and
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: I'm into the little deal or whatever, and a guy goes, Okay,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: this is what you're gonna do. I want you to
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: go in here, take a shower and use this shampoo
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: because they're doing product testing. Take a shower, use this shampoo.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Right when you get out of there, brush your tea.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Use this toothbrush and this toothpaste. Cool. It's like, don't
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: do this, don't do that stuff. We took those products
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: off the list. And then when you come in here,
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: we want you to shave with this razor. And I'm like, well,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: I'm not shaving my beerd He goes, YEA, well you
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: can just shave at the top and on the and
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: right here. Just tell us what you think about it.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: I'm like, cool, no problem. So after that, cool, I
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: do all this stuff. I get into this little room
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: and inside this room is two other guys in the
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: room and they got toiles on and I'm looking around.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: I'm like, yo, what's going on here? What is this?
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I try to weigh myself on the scale. Scale doesn't work.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: I'm looking in the room. The room looks like a gym,
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: except I know that we're not in a gym, Like,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: what's going on? So I start using the the the razor,
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: doing like this. And when I start using the razor,
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: somebody jumps out with a camera and they say, hey,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: are you ready for the Gilet Fusion pro Glide Challenge.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: It's a commercial. Oh my gosh, And I'm like, oh shit.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: And so I'm using the thing. I'm doing the whole thing.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: I'm going back and forth to God, I'm having fun.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: After the thing is over, I walk in there and
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: everybody's clapping, like, hey, why how are you doing? You
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: got did a great job. You're in a commercial boom boom,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: So don't make five hundred dollars. I make three thousand dollars.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Yet the freaking out so high because it's.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: A uh, we're done, baby special.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: That's a really good looking grilled cheese. Look at that.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: The cheese is bubbling, guys.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: It's bubbling over and it's a little buttered in.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I just learned a trick and making grilled cheese. What
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: is it to stack a lot of cheese in the middle.
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, cheese is actually a pretty staple ingredient to
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: the grilled cheese, I.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Know, but I usually just put like one or two
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yours is like, first of all, you did it really impressed.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: I tell you, I tell you, I tell you why though,
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: that's why you're healthy. Though you said you were healthy before.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Look at the like the even colored color. I don't
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: know if it's you did a really impressive grilled cheese.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, just slow and slow. Okay. So look, so
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: I'm there and they're like, okay, so it's Saturday, so
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: the five hundred bucks that you were promised you get
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: that it's Saturday, so you get double the session fee
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: on that, plus like whatever you get like a holding
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: fee and all of that stuff. So I ended up
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: making like three thousand dollars for this commercial. Let me
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: tell you what kind of American I am. I come
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: home and I'm doing my unemployment and it asked if
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: you made any money? Yep, Why I put the money
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: on there?
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I've seen niggas get the death penalty
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: for less, so so I put so, I put the
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: money on there. I put the money on there, and
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: this is what happens. They then readjust my unemployment quarterly.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Like me, yeah, I told you not to do that.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: So quarterly. So it goes from being I go from
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: getting five hundred dollars a week in unemployment to seventy
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: five dollars a week in unemployment. So I go, Okay,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: this is the deal. It's not. Obviously they don't think
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: a nigga could live off this. So I'm just gonna
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: go up to the unemployment office. I'm gonna talk to
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: these people. That's why I'm gon deal. I'm gonna go
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: up to the uneployment for some gonna talk to these people.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: I'm straightening this whole thing out. So I go up
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: there to the unemployment office in Pasadena. I'll never forget.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: The lady was like, baby, ain't nothing we can do.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: It's in the computer. I was like, uh, I can't
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: live on this blah blah blah in the computer. So
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: I needed a job. I had to have a job.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: But you know what, the funny thing was the g
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: let that commercial ended up like making me. That commercial
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: ran Oh shit, I didn't know anything. I didn't know
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: anything about being a commercial actor. So I would get
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: a holding check every now and again. And then I
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: started making money off the commercial. But that's later I
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: didn't notice. I came home, and when I came home,
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: I was like, I have to find a job. I
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: pulled up entertainment careers dot net. The first job was
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: TMS tour Guide.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: You were a tour guide, yep.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: It was being a tour guy. TMS was starting a
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: tour and the tour was like you go around to
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: different places and you show people different things that happened
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: like on TMZ, like we would show you where Josh
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: Hartnett got diarrhea, we would show you where Michael Richards
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: fucked up at the laugh Factory. It's actually a pretty
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: good tour. I actually I was one of the first
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: GUIDs on the tour. I was the first guy on
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the tour. So actually a little bit of pride in
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: the fact that we were able to jump that off
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: and make it a thing, because it's still going right now.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: So I get in there and I do that. I apply.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: That's a brilliant concept now that I think about it.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: The revolutionize the whole game. So I apply. And they're
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: doing the tours like American Idol. They have all of
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: these tour guys in there and then every week they
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: cut a guy. So I'm in there and like they
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: have me coming in there and whatever. I get the
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: whole thing. I start with the TMZ tour. This goes
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: through to about everything I'm talking about. I start with
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: the TMS tour. I think April of twenty ten, maybe
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: it might be twenty eleven, whatever it is. I start
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: with the TMZ tour. Then by July I started in March.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: By July I'm on TV every day. Within a couple
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: of months, Harvey came into the tour. I was up
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: there doing my thing, and I told a joke and
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: he liked the joke so much that he brought me
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: in and put me into the.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Into the newsroom.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: Into the newsroom.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Yep, okay. So then you get this newsroom opportunity, your
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: pay goes up. Benefits. What are we looking at?
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: So this is the way it was working. I was
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: making money because I was getting tips on the tour.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: So I was probably making fifteen hundred dollars a week
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: straight cash off the tips on the tour. I was
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: killing these motherfucking white people. I was killing them. Iuse
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: I was fucking killing them. And then you would you
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: would come in and you would have like people from
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: there was tourists like they were from our earlier they
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: were from Canada. There was a thing that we do
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: on the tour to where if you see a celebrity
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: on the tour, you stop the bus, you get off,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: you shoot the celebrity. And when you're driving around in
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: La at certain times, if you know where to go,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: it's impossible not to see famous people. Like if you
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: were coming to La and you and you were hanging
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: out with me, and I was like, hey, you want
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: to sit around and watch celebrities all day? There are
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: three or four places I could tell you where it's
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: going to happen, and so we would see them, and
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: I'm a good spotterer. I would spot celebrities and we
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: would see them, and the people would go cit we
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: all kinds of people. Fucking Lady God got Leonardo DiCaprio,
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: David Beckham and just the other niggas that be around,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: just niggas that be aroundous. You would just say, you
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: know the people I'm talking about in La, They just
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: they'd be around. You see them all the time, Like, hey,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: weren't you in Yeah, like you see them. The funniest
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: thing was b T Wars weekend, right because there would
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: be all kinds of celebrities that I would recognize that
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: the bus wouldn't know who they were, and so the
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: bus wouldn't believe me that these people were famous. I'm like, yo,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: I don't know if you know this mother a guy
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: two number ones, I ain't never heard of him before.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know he signed to Luducris and them. He's
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: that's like, actually, I don't want to say the guy's name,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: but like that's actually that guy is a huge singer,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: like you guys should probably care about him. Wait, don't know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: fuck them, keep going No, but I mean so anyway,
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: so you know, I'm making good money because I'm making
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: my tips off the tour. I'm doing three different jobs
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: for TMC. I'm also on the camera with my on
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: the street with my camera. I'm on the street with
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: my camera. I'm doing the tour.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, you're doing the tour and the newsroom and all this.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: On the tour and the newsroom. They gave me as
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: mean jobs as they could.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: And did you join as they were like a startup
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: or were they like startup level?
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: So they were. This was two thousand and so they
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: started in like two thousand and five. I got there
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: five years later.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: That's considered still startup.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Probably, so they were. They were the newsroom cast was established,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: so I had to break in. I give I always
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: give Harvey credit for this. He uh the same joke,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: because it's very hard to break into that room because
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: when you're in the room and you're everybody's fighting for airtime,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: the camera's always on Harvey. But as far as you
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: you got to say something, you gotta do something to
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: stand out. So you get you start to maximize the
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: moments that you have, and if you're on that means
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: somebody else isn't. So once it's ten motherfucker's in there,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: they're not looking for the eleventh motherfucker to come in.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: But Harvey knew that I had that joke that I
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: could tell on the I want to hear the joke.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: It kind of doesn't work without us being on the tour,
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: but so we so we passed by the Hustler store
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: on the tour, and so it would stop on the
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Hustler tour, and this was a different time to tell
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: this joke. Okay, So so we would stop and I
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: would have the bus stop right by the Hustle store,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: and you know, Larry Flynn is right, Larry Flint started Hustler,
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: and I'd be like, this guy's hustle store. Larry Flint
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: started Hustler. And I don't know if you guys know this,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: but Larry Flint is one of the most important men
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: in the history of civil rights. And they're like, what
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: are you talking about? And I was like, well, you
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: guys might not know this, but Larry Flynn is in
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: a wheelchair. He was shot. One of the reasons why
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: Larry Flint was shot was because there were people that
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: were upset that he was doing interracial photo spreads in
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: a hustler. It's very true, and the bus will go, oh,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that, and I would go like, yeah,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: So Larry Flint, it's very important to a right leader
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: because he took a bullet so that I could fuck
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: white women. That's that's good, right, And so I remember Harvey,
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, and so I go and so they
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: don't want to laugh, they don't.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Want to laugh funny.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: But I'm in the room and I say that everybody,
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: and it's so far out of left field, and they've
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: never heard the sound of my voice before. I remember
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: shout out to Nina Parker, who worked at TMZ with me,
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: who's still a dear friend of mine to this day.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Beautiful black woman. Nina was looking at me like, I know,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: they didn't just bring one of these niggas into the
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: newsroom where these goddamn Tiger Woods is. But that joke
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: put me over in the newsroom, and so and he
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: knew that it would. And so after that boom, they
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: all left. Another thing I tell the kids, I don't
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: want to be hyper verbose about the whole TMZ situation,
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: but another thing I tell the kids is your ability
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: to succeed at a place is not just about your talent.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: It's about your ability to recognize opportunity.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: So the very first year I was there, I realized
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: that everybody goes home for Christmas, so everybody takes off
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: for Christmas. So if you watched the show, it's always
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: a buzzy newsroom. Everybody is around, everybody's doing all of this,
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: but it's bare bones in there, like any point after
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: Thanksgiving to the New Year, because everybody's rotating in and
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: off vacation, but they're still doing the show. They still
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: have to do a show. They don't go dark for
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: two weeks like everybody else is a daily show. I
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: did not go home. I stuck around, And when I
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: stuck around, I got all of the time to talk
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: and be on camera that I wanted to. So in
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: that month, I endeared myself to the audience. Right after that,
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: he comes in, he goes, we're gonna give you a raise.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: We're gonna do all of this next time, contract with
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: up and just my stature at TMZ just went up
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: to the point to where I think maybe a year
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: two years after that, I was a producer.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: So let's take let's let's fast forward to the iconic
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: moments Kanye West.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: You like him?
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I love Kanye. I love old Kanye.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Now you like him? Now I can tell yeah.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: You know what, it's so funny. So my favorite rapper
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: is jay Z and my little brother's favorite rapper is Kanye.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: But now Eagle acknowledges that jay Z is the ultimate goat.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: So you know, we have a great, great relationship. But Kanye,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: let me try this girl, cheese, go for it.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Bless you as straight from Angola State Penitentiary right there.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Let's see. But Kanye, old Kanye was simply amazing to me.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I loved how outspoken he was. I don't know what
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: happened in the Kardashian eir, like what kind of drugs
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: they put him on or what went wrong because he
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: was always pro from the bush statement like he was
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: always that guy. So take us to that day, what's
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: going on like from beginning to end?
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: So Harvey had gone to that that butter gonna burn.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: So Harvey had gone to you know, the week before then,
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: Kanye had an album going out, and this is after the
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: Trump stuff, and he had, you know, gone off at
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: his at his show and all of that stuff. Harvey
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: had gone out to Calabasas. He was so giddy calling
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: me up to his office and he goes, look what
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: it is. It's me hanging out with Kanye West. So
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: I'm like whatever, you were like whatever? Yeah, I'm like
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: at this point, I don't give a fuck about that.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: I hate that type of shit. Okay, though, I'll tell
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: you what I hate. Don't talk to me about who
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: you was hanging out with ever. Okay, Like, if you
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: go to a party, when you come back and talk
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: to me about the party, talk to me about how
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: the vibes were, where the drinks good, was the music good?
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: So if jay Z was in the room, you want
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: to hear about the drinks.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: I don't give off. I don't give off fuck. If
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: jay Z came to your party, I couldn't give a fuck.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: What do that? So it's a good party because that's
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: the only thing you be here for a whole So
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: it's a good party because he was there. Shout out
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: to him like it's a good party. Because he was there.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: I don't give welcome thank you. I don't care at all, Like,
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: hey man, the drinks was good man, DJ was crazy.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: He played that old school juve and now all of
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: that ship. Now I'm gonna come to the party. If
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: you start, don't my party. If Jay show up to
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: your party, it's a I guess it's a big deal
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: for your party. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: it doesn't make me want to attend your party because
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: there are famous.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: People there, of course, but I'm saying that. Okay. So
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Harvey comes to you, He's like, yo, I was kicking
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it with.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: This. This is all I heard is Kanye Kanye. And
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: so he shows me the thing and him and Kanye
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: have some kind of report that they're working on or whatever.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know it's going on. And so a week
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: after that he like, I'm in the newsroom. And by
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: the way, at this point, I've been very outspoken on
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Kanye because this is Kanye posting with Donald Trump, this
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: is posts all of that stuff. So it comes up
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: to me after the morning meeting. He goes, hey, I
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: was like what there he goes, we didn't want to
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: tell you but about ten minutes Kanye was about to
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: show up here. I was like inside of TMZ and
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: he was like yeah. He was like all right, just
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: let you know all the mics are going to be down.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: Because the way it works is for TMZ Live, which
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: is the live show. Showa comes in the middle of day.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: You have a red button at your desk and a
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: thing at your desk. Anytime you have that red button,
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: you can talk. So after Harvey and Charles do their thing,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: you hit that red button. You can talk. So when
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: I want to jump in and say something funny, I
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: jump in and say something fun When I want to
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: jump in when it's time for them to come to me,
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: like Van van Van Talk, you can talk. But they
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: had all the mics down because they just wanted this
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: to be Harvey, Charles and Kanye West. Okay, cool. So
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: I go sit at mine shout out to Charlemagne because uh.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: I go sit down at my desk and I start
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: watching the interview that Charlemagne did with Kanye that dropped
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: that very same day when he was walking around Calabasa.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: So I started watching that. I'm at the desk. Kanye
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: West comes in, very polite guy, says hello to everyone
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: and everything like that. They go over to the teams
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: he live to start doing teams he live. As soon
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: as the cameras come on, he turns into a fucking demon,
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: right like when I say you when I'm like it
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: just I come alive in the nighttime type shit. You
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Yeah, he's talking now. I mean
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying that.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: He was being demon like the stuff he was saying.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the demon. I'm not demonizing Kanye West.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: I mean it was like the streaming consciousness, the whole thing.
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh shit, but I'm still not paying any attention.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not paying any attention. I'm looking at the interview.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: I'm not a part of this conversation.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: So you're looking at the interview but watching kind of looking.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Up or Kanya not really. But remember I've been told
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: specifically that I'm not part of this conversation. So it's
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: on them. Uh, Kanye says a slavery four hundred. Oh.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: By the way, Kennice Owens is with him. She came
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: to the office with him.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you're not looking, not watching the
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: interview and still looking at the sharp interview.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at the Charlemagne interview. They're walking around Calabasas,
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: like you know, they they Kanye got his hair, you know,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: they're having all of these deep as sauces. I'm looking
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: at but I can. I can hear him though, because
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: he starts to scream. He doesn't just want to talk
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: to Harvey and Charles, he wants to talk to all
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: of us, right, so I can, I can hear him.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: It was like, God, damn this nigga, Damn that nigga
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: on one and so like, I'm still looking at it,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: and he says, slavery four hundred years, four hundred years.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: That seems like a choice to me, And everybody's like, oh,
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: look when he said that, couldn't see her. I don't
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: know she. I think she was in the other room,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: because there's a side room. A couple of weeks before that,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: and maybe like a month before that, Candace had gone
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: viral for shutting down some some students that had come
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: to a turning point us a meeting where she had
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: said you're a victim and I don't like you, and
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: fuck civil rights, whatever and and whatever she said to them,
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: and Kanye was like, this is the type of thinking
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: that I like. And then he put it. Kanye put
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: Candisons on like she she she By the way, this
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: is if any want to make a judgment, call about
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Candace Owns, go to whoever you go to, wherever you
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: want to go to or whatever. But he put her
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: on basically, so she was with him for a little while.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: I think he got a lot of his his his
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: early political when he was first in that new sort
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: of right sphere of thought. I think a lot of
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: he got a lot of that stuff from her. I
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: think he probably still does it this day, from a
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: lot of those types of people. Anyhow, so he's talking.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: He says that I didn't say anything when he said that.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: There's a there's a misconception that he said that. And
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: I was like, nah, I didn't like. I didn't like like.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: I didn't say yeah. People think it was like a
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: big deal. I didn't say nothing, right, I didn't say
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: anything at all? His business he asked, He asked very simply.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: He said that everyone gasps. One other person had said once,
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: one other thing about something that he had said. But
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: most of the people in the room just sidebar real quick.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: You guys have no idea I guess you actually probably do,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: because Atlanta has per capital more famous people than anywhere else.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: You can't go to a fucking mall without goddamn nigga.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Wasn't you in atl But like, but just fame just
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: paralyzes people, particularly in LA like fame just like just like,
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: oh my God, doesn't matter what he would have said
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: up there, He's saying stuff and people are like, Jesus
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Christ is the most famous person that's ever And i'side
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: this officer for it, But.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised because at TMG they crossed past it a lot.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: No nobody like that, Like it's like, especially to be
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: in the office doing that. It's one thing to have
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: to see people out on the street and get a
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: but you know, there's a specific TMZ celebrity that we
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: talk to all the time. You know, nobody like that.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: So take us back to that moment before you Superman.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: So he says that, and he turns around and he goes,
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: he says the whole thing, and he goes, does it
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm speaking freely? He says that. He turns around,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: he goes, does it feel like I'm speaking freely? Okay,
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: now let me tell you a split second, is how
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: my mind works. Like for me, I just have like
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: my insecurity is that I just can't be the nigga
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: you can fuck over. I don't have to be the
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: number one guy. But like I'll fight you until you
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: realize you can't fuck over me. I'll play you in
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: basketball to our realize I can't be the easy guy
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: to get over on. So if you ask me something
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: like that and I didn't say anything, there's toxicity in
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: me that says, I gotta answer this question, like I
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: can't have allowed him that somebody might think that. It's
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: like everybody was, like you are filled up with the answers,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: is not. I didn't want to feel like a weakling. Yes,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to miss my opportunity to tell him
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: how I feel like he was acting, because then it
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: feels like I'm the one that he could just kind
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: of get off on. So he says that, and I
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: gonna know, y'all, I don't feel like you're thinking anything
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: like actually you don't know you're I remember, I'm said,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna go back to the whole thing. But you look
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: crazy right now, like everything that you're doing, not just now,
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: but every other time, like you look crazy, you're not thinking,
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: and particularly this it's not even about that. It's about
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: what the regression or how can I put this? Not regression,
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: it's what a guy like that represents because we empower him.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: So imagine like spinning your youth, like arming somebody with
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: this great, big cultural gun. Everything that Kanye did, we
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: were I was down in Louisiana wheen he said George
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: Bush doesn't care about black people. He was my god.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Like all the things that he would say when he
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: would speak out, like you defend them, you advocate for him.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: You do it. You stand by and you just the
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: little cultural gun that he has, a little megaphone, it
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: just gets bigger and bigger. The gun just gets bigger
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: and bigger and bigger, and then one day you're staring
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: down the barrel of it. Now the things that he's
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: saying that you've empowered him to say are being turned
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: right back at you. And so like it's like, hey,
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: don't shoot me, Like why are you shooting at me?
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: Like you know what I'm saying. It's like I'm the
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: same dude like you you Kanye West, I love you. Yeah,
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: Like if I'm not about to diss him. Never would
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: I say to you, know, you're a genius. Everything that
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: you've done is you deserve all the stuff that you've gotten.
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: We love you. Well, let me tell you how you're
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: making us feel. That's it. That's it. I'm not trying
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: to go toe to toad with like a cultural deity,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. I'm not trying to act
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: like he hasn't inspired me in the ways that he's
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: inspired me, or act like he hasn't done the things
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: he's done, Like we don't do that where I'm from.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: We give you your props, or else we would be haters.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: But I just have to let him know, like what
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: you're doing right now is particularly pernicious to us because
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: we're in a very specific place in this country. And
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: when you go back and you watch it, you listen, Now, look,
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: my thing is this, any one person like that. There's
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: no person that's going to be able to be a
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: nigger whisperer and change what somebody thinks. Like there's a
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: day to day experience that people have that has to
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: do with their surroundings, who they are, their input and
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: output that's going to affect how they look at the world,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: and you're not asking anybody to be to change that.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: But what I do think is important as black people
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: who is for us to be cognizant of how what
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: we do affects other people. For example, I worked at
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: TMZ for nine years. I'm not in a moral position
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: to chastise anyone, like literally, like not in a figurative way.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I'm not in a moral position to chastise anyone. I
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: understand compromises that people have to make in order to
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: get to where they want to get. I understand that
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: sometimes people might walk into situations and not really know
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: what it is that they're getting into. And then on
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: the other side, you know better than you do better, right,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: So it's not about that. It's about just alerting someone
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: when you feel like they're doing harm and then that's that.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: And then after that, after I've said my piece, you
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: can choose either you can continue to harm me or
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: you can be different.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: So how did that milestone with Kanye change the trajectory
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: of your life? Because it definitely had a huge impact.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: So it was really the beginning of my career. And
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: the reason why it was was because number one, I
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: was never going to be able to leave TMZ with
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: the reputation that they have there. And this is not
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: shots at TMZ or anything like that. Once you leave
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: a place that has such a distinct perch and culture,
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: it's very difficult for people to believe certain things about you.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: And I think going over.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: What do you mean, like what kind of culture? Like
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: are you familiar with I am familiar with them. I'm
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: just saying, describe it. Ah, I'm saying from the journalists perspective,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: you're saying, like.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying. So, look, there's a reason why
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: like a TMS exists, And honestly, the reason why TMS
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: exists is the need for people to feel good about themselves.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: The reader or the watcher toe.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: So the celebrity in America is uh overloved, way overloved,
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: over important, over everything. It just doesn't matter that much
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: that somebody is famous or rich. It just really doesn't
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: matter that much. Honestly, it's probably a net negative. However,
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: it's so it's so precious to people that there's a
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: need to feel that that person has done or is
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: doing something.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: Wrong, like to more humanize them.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: Right, So, like the question becomes this, say, take Kim
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: Kardashian right. Everybody saw her fuck right. Everybody saw her
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: fuck it's just sex tape out. Everybody saw it right.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: Everybody watched the sex tape that comes out. And people
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: get to make the decision about whether or not they
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: would have that happen for them, whether or not they
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: would go through that in order to be Kim Kardashian.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: And it makes them feel good to say no. So
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: it makes them feel good to say, you know what,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't want that life. It's too crazy. It makes
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: them good to feel to say. It makes them feel
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: good to say, I wouldn't compromise myself in that way.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: It makes him feel good to say, I would never
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: do this. I would never be around these people. I
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: would never do that. I would never do this. It
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: makes him feel good to say, Hollywood's too weird, I
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: wouldn't do that. Right, and TMZ feels that bloodlust that
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: people have, and it lets them disconnect from the idea
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: that these people are better than them. It lets them
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: disconnect because every time somebody gets a DUI and it
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: goes up to the thing every time somebody gets a divorce.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: Everybody in here knows people that have been divorced. Yeah,
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: there's no magic or sinister story to a divorce. Sometimes
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: it don't work out. It just doesn't work out. But
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: you want to believe certain people will never be happy
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: because their lifestyles are antithetical to happiness in a relationship.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: So you want to you want to believe, like like you,
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: like you, you you, you want to believe that, right,
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: you want to believe that teams gives you that. In
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: order to do that, TMZ has to treat those people
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: like they're not people. They have to treat them as
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: if their concepts celebrity is not a person.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: That's why I guess TMZ comes off a little bit
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: invasive and ruthless.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: Right, Well, no, because they're.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: They're not treating they're they're treating them kind of like.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: Well, you have to write like even even the TMZ
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: tour was a celebrity safari, Like what's on a safari?
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, animals animals, right and.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: So and so like when when you like the tours
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: celebrities far as animals, right? And so you do that,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: right and what you what you say is okay, Well,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: in order to be a celebrity, the game is pr
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: at its base, right, So this is what you sign
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: up for kind of right, because like there are certain
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: things that you don't sign up I'll never talk I'll
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: never I'll never forget this. There was the sister of
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: a celebrity that had that had had something taught done
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: to them. I'll never forget. I'm not gonna talk about
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: who I had the conversation with. I'm like, Yo, we
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: shouldn't do that. And they did the story and this
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: dude went on fucking and let us fucking happ and
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: I was like, Yo, we had to take it down
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: and apologize and do all that stuff. I like, yo, like,
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: there's a limit to this. And that's not me making
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: a moral judgment on team Team. I'm just telling you
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: the way things go. So like when you know all
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: of that, when you have an idea of what drives that,
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: like obviously they're moral. Uh, there're things that you have
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: to not care about to work there. But most of
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: the people there are good people. They're just desensitized to
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: whatever was going on there because that's where they work,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: like like that, like that's what they do. I'm there,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: it's the same thing. Things are coming in. At a
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: certain point, you go, goddamn, you know and it's there
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: will be little small things. This is a football player
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: that had this video come out of some altercation. It
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: was in and it said savage beating by this, and
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: I was just looking at the hellline. I'm like, that's
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: I don't think we should go savage beating there. Like
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: I think savage is like a it's like an interesting
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: way where there's just little small things. The mayor of
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: DC died, Marion Barry crack maryor Marion Barry dies like
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: he died and like, by the way, the people in
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: DC are going to freak the funk out because I
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: don't know if you guys know, but Marion Barry was
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: with Martin Luther King Junior. Like where I'm from, Like
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: I deal with a group of people, a community, people
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: that are always categorized by the worst moment that they have.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: And I don't feel comfortable with categorizing a man that
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: means so much to his city by the worst moe
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: scandalous thing you ever had. You can't talk about his
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: life without talking about that, but maybe in the headline
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: you don't do that. So so it so all of
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: those things start to start to happen, And so for me,
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: what the place represents. It's not even so much a
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: bunch of uh, not even so much a bunch of
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: moral people that are running around trying to get the
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: dirt on celebrities. It represents our relationship to celebrity and
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: our relationship to ourselves, because there's no fucking reason whatsoever
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: why we should spend so much time talking about what
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: happens in the lives of famous people.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Famous for more, eating while broke from iHeartRadio and the
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: black effects of the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,